No, there is nothing wrong with trading Sean Marshall. The decision to move Marshall was the correct one. The issue is with the return. I think they thought Travis Wood would establish himself as a valuable member of the rotation moving forward. He has not done that to this point. Too soon to give up on him, sure, but I'm not impressed so far.

And, no, Theo and Friends didn't fumble anything with Garza. Nevertheless, the worst thing that happened to them this year was Garza going down at an inopportune time. Given his talent level, track record and reasonable contract situation, the Cubs could have netted a nice return had they moved him to a contender this summer. Due to the injury, it blew up in their faces. That defeats the argument that the Dempster deal was the only thing that went wrong for the Cubs this year.

Frankly, I think the Cubs did about all they could do with Dempster. He had his 10-and-5 rights. There's nothing the club can do about that. The player had his rights and he exercised them. I don't think there was as big a market for Dempster's services as people thought or maybe hoped. The Rangers panicked a little bit when they lost Greinke to a division rival, and the Yankees were in a tight spot with both Sabathia and Pettitte on the shelf at the same time. The desperation of those two clubs created a little bit of a market for Dempster. The Cubs got what they could.

This year didn't go well at all for the Cubs. They had very few young players capitalize on the opportunities they were given. They've got even more work to do than maybe they realized coming into the situation.

They could have traded him before the season. 2 years of him pre-injury would have probably brought an amazing return.

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What is Mind? -- Doesn't Matter!
What is Matter? -- Never Mind!
-Homer Simpson